Today's trip is one that I have anticipated and looked forward to before this class was even established. I have wanted to visit the rain forest most of my life and I am so excited to finally have the opportunity. El Yunque has been a Federal Forest Reserve for over a century and is one of the oldest reserves in the Western Hemisphere (see El Yungue for more information about the rainforest and its inhabitants). It was such a beautiful day and truely a once in a lifetime experience. The weather was perfect. I was afraid that it was going to be really hot and humid but it was a pleasant temperature and there was a refreshing breeze. What a view!!! The sight was absolutely amazing. We visited waterfalls on our way to the reserve and hiked on trails that were surrounded by this natural beauty. There are so many different types of plants and trees in the rainforest that just mix togther to create an amazing scenery. Scientist don't really know why there are so many different trees growing in the rainforest but believe it has to due with the year-round rain, sun, and warm weather. I was expecting to see more animals during our visit to the rainforest, but even though the animals were not very visible they were definitely audible. The rainforest has over sixty species of birds, but the sound that we heard most often was that of the coqui. The coqui is a tiny tree frog that makes this pretty sound "co-kee." We searched all over hoping to spot the coqui but never even came close to locating one. Listen carefully and you can hear the coqui.
Before we left the rainforest we climbed the Yokahu Tower and took in the breath-taking view of the rainforest from an elevation of 1,575 ft. I absolutely loved the rainforest, but my one disappointment is that we did not hike all the way to the big waterfall that we could have jumped in. What an experience that would have been, but that always gives me a reason to return to Puerto Rico in the future.
A small group of us went to a local restaurant and had a great dinner with an interesting conversation. The food wasn't technically wasn't Puerto Rican but it was the best quesadilla I have ever had. Our group consisted of teachers from schools all across your county and we had different experiences with diversity within the schools. Our conversation really centered around diversity and acceptance, or the lack of, in our schools. Most of us in the group teach in very homogeneous environments in terms of race and ethnicity so we don't have to deal with the prejudices and conflicts among different groups of people. We are aware of the continued problem in our society in this aspect but we are not dragged down daily by dealing with these issues and feeling like we are not getting through to the kids. Bill was sharing with us the stories of the conflicts that he deals with on a daily basis at his school. There are kids just blindly hating other ethnic groups and purposefully displaying certain symbols or doing things that will hurt and infuriate another group. This prejudice is growing with the increase of minority population; it is no longer the black vs. white conflict but now the black vs. hispanic or hispanic vs. white. We see the kids struggling with their beliefs on this issue and see that as hard as we work to teach tolerance and acceptance the parents are pulling them in the opposite direction by acting and speaking in prejudicial ways. The really interesting part of our conversation was how things are so different here. Although there is a sense that everyone is Puerto Rican, there is the same visual differences among the people and there are small populations of non-Puerto Ricans yet they don't seem to have the same conflict among the different groups that we have. We were talking with Anna, who has lived in different places around the world, and in her experiences she has seen this same non-existence of racial conflict. She said that it is just something that is not typically discussed. If other countries around the world can have this diversity and get along, why can't we?
I thought it was interesting too how people in Puerto Rico do not see themselves as black or white, but Puerto Rican. When our professor said that many people check "other" on a census and write in Puerto Rican, I thought it was very unique!
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